Jira alternatives for small dev teams
Jira can be configured for any process. If your team is under 30 and mostly needs boards, sprints and a backlog, here are five tools that cost less and take less setting up, and what you give up with each.
Mateusz Fajst· Founder of Elean
3 min read
I don’t think Jira is a bad tool. In a big company it earns its place: a full workflow editor, custom fields on everything, planning across dozens of teams, and Confluence and Bitbucket right next to it.
A team of eight developers rarely needs most of that, though. You end up paying for it twice: once in the time it takes to set up and keep tidy, and again once you pass ten people.
Jira Free covers up to 10 users. From the eleventh, Standard is $8.48 per user per month on monthly billing. For 15 people that’s $127 a month.
First, what you’d lose
It’s worth being clear about this before you move, because migrations are a pain and you don’t want to do one twice.
- Custom workflows and fields. If your process depends on them, look at ClickUp or Plane first, or stay where you are.
- Timeline, calendar and cross-team planning. Jira has them built in. Several of the tools below don’t.
- The Atlassian suite. If your docs are in Confluence and your code is in Bitbucket, that integration is hard to replace.
If none of those is why you’re on Jira, everything below will feel lighter.
Five alternatives
Linear
The fastest and most polished tracker for software teams I know of. Triage, cycles, and AI agents that work inside the tracker. $150 a month for 15 people on Basic, billed annually. Insights and guest accounts start on the Business plan.
Plane
Open source, with a hosted version and one you can run yourself. Pages on every plan; custom properties, time tracking and a wiki on Pro. $90 a month for 15 people on Pro, billed annually. Free covers up to 12 users.
Elean
This is ours, so take it with that in mind. Boards, lists, cycles, Insights and private projects on every plan, multiple assignees, MCP for AI agents, and data hosted in the EU. $39 a month for 15 people on Pro, then $4 per extra member. Free covers up to 10. We don’t have a wiki, custom fields or self-hosting yet.
ClickUp
The broadest of the five: docs, custom fields, Gantt charts, time tracking and automations. $105 a month for 15 people on Unlimited, billed annually. All that breadth means more setting up, so in that sense it’s the closest to Jira here.
Trello
The simplest. Boards first, Power-Ups for everything else. $75 a month for 15 people on Standard, billed annually. Great for light process, thin once you want sprints and a real backlog.
Side by side
| Tool | 15 people / month | Pick it if you |
|---|---|---|
| Jira Standard | $127 | need workflows, custom fields and the Atlassian suite |
| Linear Basic | $150 | want triage and AI agents in the tracker |
| ClickUp Unlimited | $105 | want docs, fields and Gantt in one place |
| Plane Pro | $90 | want to self-host or need a wiki next to tasks |
| Trello Standard | $75 | mostly need boards |
| Elean Pro | $39 | want cycles, Insights and private projects at one flat price |
If you want the detail, Elean vs Jira goes through it feature by feature, and the other comparisons do the same for the rest.
Prices from each tool's public pricing page, checked on October 15, 2026. They change — check the vendor's page before you decide.
